Cross posted to the "Highly Imaginative Technology List" HIT-list@asisem.org
------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:14:32 -0500 From: Nathan Russell <frussell@frontiernet.net> Reply-to: frussell@frontiernet.net To: HIT-list@asisem.org Subject: Re: HIT: Fwd: (Fwd) Re: Nanotechnology
Otto Matic wrote:
Orinally posted to the cypherpunks list cypherpunks@cyberpass.net.
------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:45:36 -0500 From: ghio@temp0181.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio) Subject: Re: Nanotechnology To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net Reply-to: ghio@temp0181.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio)
Matthew Ghio Wrote to the Cypherpunks: <<<SNIP>>>
So roughly 8 months just to build one copy, rather than to achieve world domination. :)
Still, unless I'm way off on these estimates, it's within the right ballpark. If the cubes were 1 cm, you could make copies in less than a day, assuming it didn't get too hot at that power level. Just figure out how you're going to feed the electricity and raw materials into all those little things...
You could direct the molecules the same way electron beams are steered in a TV > > > >This sort of replicator is not what is usually considered > >nanotechnology, but if it actually worked, such a >device could become
quite popular.
Nathan Russell wrote to the HIT-List Yeah... what about making microchips, LSD or diamonds - all of which have very high value/mass ratios. Or bio warfare agents - maybe in cryogenic state to be warmed up when finished. What about more complicated lifeforms - like people. It would be hard to figure out what to use for currancy, though - in Star Trek, Latinum is assumed, according to one book, to be dependent for its properties on a huge number of molecular legs resting against each other rather like the fins of an artichoke steamer - can't be replicated because unless the molecule is complete each leg creates an unequal force on its neighbors and they flip into a non-latinum position. Not that there wouldn't be positive elements - medicine would be very cheap. In fact, a pound - or maybe a mole - of anything with value would cost no more than its component elements, plus labor. What about little self- 'replicating' robots that go into a landfill and produce an army of themselves, turning excess elements into something useful. BTW, could living things be replicated or would the structure be too complex? Intelligence supposebly depends on electrons moving in tiny protein quantom channels in the brain in a completely unprodictable way, telpathy is the electrons becoming quantom linked. That could be hard to replicate. -Nathan ___END FORWARDED___ Thought you cypher punks would like to see this. Otto ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com